458

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Eshaghian et al.

Transmission enhancement of sharply bent

nanoplasmonic slot waveguides
Ali Eshaghian, Hossein Hodaei, Meisam Bahadori, Mohsen Rezaei, and Khashayar Mehrany*
Department of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
*Corresponding author: mehrany@sharif.edu
Received October 16, 2013; revised December 14, 2013; accepted December 15, 2013;
posted January 10, 2014 (Doc. ID 199520); published February 11, 2014
The bending performance of standard nanoplasmonic slot waveguides is substantially improved by reducing the
leakage loss and reflection in a systematic way. The out-of-plane power leakage is suppressed by using square
metallic patches above and below the bend. The in-plane power leakage is reduced by elimination of the
asymmetry between the electrical length of the inner and outer corners of the bend. The unwanted reflection
is decreased by changing the shape of the outer corner of the bend. The partial reflections caused by the indentations of the modified shape destructively interfere with each other and thereby decrease the unwanted back
reflection. 2014 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (240.6680) Surface plasmons; (230.7400) Waveguides, slab; (130.3120) Integrated optics
devices; (130.2790) Guided waves.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.31.000458

1. INTRODUCTION
Plasmonic integrated circuits are among the promising candidates that can help us to go beyond the limitations of todays
electrical and optical integrated circuits. The optimistic view
of the future of plasmonics stems from the fact that metallic
nanostructures in plasmonic circuitry can manipulate the flow
of light to realize miscellaneous functionalities within a subwavelength scale [111]. In particular, dielectric nanoslots
carved in thin metallic films, i.e., nanoplasmonic slot waveguides, have been of much interest in recent years [1215],
especially because they can be monolithically integrated on
a CMOS platform and also can realize nanoscale plasmonic
chip-to-chip interconnections.
Regretfully, the efficiency of light transmission through
sharply bent single mode nanoplasmonic slot waveguides
is quite low at near infrared wavelengths [16,17]; and thus,
there is no bending flexibility. This is a serious obstacle to
overcome since lack of bending flexibility challenges largescale integration [18]. It is worth noting that despite the
geometric similitude between the three-dimensional nanoplasmonic slot waveguide and its two-dimensional counterpart, i.e., the metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) waveguide [16],
the former bears a much higher level of bending loss than does
the latter [1621]. This should not come as a surprise since the
fundamental mode of the former is by no means similar to that
of the latter [2224].
The most straightforward approach to decrease the bending loss of nanoplasmonic slot waveguides is to round the
sharp corners [13,17]. Unfortunately, rounding the sharp corner of a 90 bend by using a bending radius of about tens of
nanometers cannot enhance the transmission significantly
[17]. Rather, the bending radius of the structure should be
about a few micrometers [25,26]. Still, this is not a promising
solution because the overall length of wave propagation is
increased in this manner from nanometers to micrometers.
0740-3224/14/030458-06$15.00/0

The increased length of wave propagation imposes two certain difficulties. First and foremost, it does not remedy the
bending flexibility issue as it necessitates larger chip footprint
area. Second, it incurs a higher level of Ohmic loss and
thereby counterweights the lower level of radiation loss
[26]. One other straightforward approach to increase the
transmission efficiency of sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot
waveguides is to increase the mode confinement [17]. In
this way, however, the reduction of leakage from the bend
is bought at the expense of increased per-unit-length
propagation loss constant and multimode operation [23,24].
Therefore, bending loss reduction in nanoplasmonic slot
waveguides remains in want of a more creative approach.
Recently, a creative attempt at increasing the transmission
efficiency of sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguides has
been made by insertion of a metallic pillar at the corner of the
bend [16]. It is worth noting that the same idea had been
already employed for reduction of the reflection loss in
sharply bent V grooves [27]. The major role of the pillar in
these works is to reduce the reflection loss via destructive
interference. Unfortunately, the unwanted power leakage
from the bend is not significantly affected by the pillar. The
high level of power transmission in this work (about 92%)
is not much indebted to the presence of pillars. Rather, it is
indebted to the fact that the height of V groove is significantly
larger than the penetration depth of the fundamental mode
within the groove. The cost to be paid is multimode operation
of the waveguide. Therefore, the transmission efficiency is not
considerably enhanced even when the pillar is present. The
low level of transmission is a more pronounced issue in the
near infrared regime, where the structure becomes more
prone to leakage because the electromagnetic energy is more
concentrated around the edge corners at shorter wavelengths
[24]. It is for this reason that the transmission efficiency
of sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguides in the near
2014 Optical Society of America

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Vol. 31, No. 3 / March 2014 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B

2. REDUCTION OF OUT-OF-PLANE
LEAKAGE
The sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguide to be studied
in this paper is schematically shown in Fig. 1. Its height and
width are denoted by h and w, respectively. A uniform dielectric of refractive index n fills the slot and the surrounding regions. Without loss of generality, it is assumed that n
1.5,
and the metallic region is made of silver whose permittivity
can be approximated by the well-known Drudes model [28]:
m 

2p
;
 i

(1)

where
3.7, p
1.38 1016 rads,
2.73 1013 rads,

and is the angular frequency of light. It is also assumed that
h
100 nm and w
80 nm. This structure is already studied
in [17]. It is a very good case study because it suffers from both
reflection and radiation. That part of the mode profile energy

that is confined within the slot region is prone to be reflected

back. The rest of the mode profile energy that is outside of the
slot region is likely to be lost to leaky waves. In Fig. 2, the
transmission, reflection, bending loss, and intrinsic Ohmic dissipation of this typical structure are plotted versus near infrared wavelengths by solid, dashed, dotted, and dasheddotted
lines, respectively. The following steps are taken to discern
between bending loss and Ohmic dissipation of silver. First,
the normalized fundamental quasi-TEM mode of the nanoplasmonic slot waveguide is excited at distance l
260 nm ahead
of the bend and then the transverse electromagnetic fields at
distance l
260 nm away from the bend and at the same distance ahead of the bend (at the excitation port) are projected
on the forward and backward fundamental slot mode to
obtain the transmission, T b , and reflection, Rb , of the bend
respectively. Second, the Ohmic dissipation of the structure,
AO , is obtained by calculation of the absorption in the straight
structure of length 2l  w
600 nm. This is easily carried out
by using the per-unit-length propagation loss constant of the
nanoplasmonic slot waveguide. In this manner, the bending
loss, Ab
1 T b Rb AO , is obtained by using the energy
conservation principle.
Figure 2 clearly demonstrates that the transmission efficiency of this structure is quite low and hardly exceeds
5 dB (37%). It also demonstrates that the transmission of
the structure is low mainly because the bending loss is quite
significant. Neither the intrinsic Ohmic dissipation of the slot
mode nor the back reflection is the dominant factor in
decreasing the transmission level of the structure.
As already pointed out, one easy way to decrease the bending loss is to decrease the dimensions of the slot. In this way,
the modal size is reduced, i.e., the fundamental slot mode
becomes highly confined, and the bending loss decreases.
Unfortunately, such a reduction of the bending loss is bought
at the expense of raising the Ohmic dissipation because high
confinement is accompanied by short propagation length [23].
Furthermore, decreasing the dimensions of the slot waveguide could result in multimode operation [24]. It is therefore
necessary to think of another approach to decrease the bending loss without increasing the Ohmic dissipation.
One obvious idea to decrease the bending loss without substantial increase of the Ohmic dissipation of the structure is to
0.8
Transmission, Reflection & Loss

infrared regime does not exceed a certain level unless the

power leakage from the bend is suppressed.
Here, to the best of our knowledge, the transmission efficiency of sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguides is
increased not only by reduction of reflection but also by suppression of power leakage from the bend for the first time.
This is carried out without increasing the Ohmic dissipation
of the straight structure (per-unit-length propagation loss constant) and without smoothing the sharpness of bend. First, the
out-of-plane (vertical) power leakage is partly fed back to the
structure by using two metallic patches inserted above and
below the bend. The optimum position of the metallic patches
is found by calculation of the out-of-plane component of the
Poynting vector. Metallic patches cannot be inserted far away
from the bend or otherwise most of the vertically leaked
power is lost before getting a chance to be reflected back
to the structure. They cannot be inserted in the vicinity of
the slot, or otherwise a considerable portion of the incident
light is lost to higher order modes. Second, the in-plane power
leakage is harnessed by devising some uncomplicated geometric modifications, which eliminate the asymmetry between the inner and outer edges of the bend, downplay the
unwanted effect of momentum mismatch, and reduce the
back reflection. The transmission efficiency of sharply bent
nanoplasmonic slot waveguides is considerably increased
in this manner and yet the design parameters of the slot
waveguide are not optimized to guarantee higher transmission through a sharp bend at a specific wavelength. The standard three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method
(3D-FDTD) is employed throughout this paper.

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

Fig. 1. Schematic of a sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguide.

459

0.82

0.84

0.86
0.88
Wavelength, m

0.9

Fig. 2. Transmission (solid line), reflection (dashed), bending loss

(dotted), and Ohmic dissipation (dasheddotted) of the structure in
Fig. 1, when w
80 nm and h
100 nm.

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Eshaghian et al.

0.35

Normalized Power

0.3

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

50
100
150
200
250
Distance from the upper surface, m

300

Fig. 3. y component of the normalized power flow over an square

area of 500 nm 500 nm in the bent structure of Fig. 1, when
w
80 nm, h
100 nm, and 0
850 nm.

reflect part of the out-of-plane power leakage back to the

structure. In Fig. 3, the y component of the normalized power
flow at different heights above the upper surface of the
sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguide, i.e., at different
y coordinates, is integrated over the square area, S

500 nm 500 nm (patches shown in Fig. 4), and is plotted
when the wavelength of light at free space is 0
850 nm.
According to this figure, the out-of-plane leakage from the
structure has a non-negligible share and if reduced can
increase the transmission of the structure. This can be done
by placing two identical metallic square patches at distance hp
from the upper and lower surfaces of the bent slot waveguide.
This is schematically shown in Fig. 4. The area and thickness
of these patches are denoted by S p and wp , respectively.
Here, the thickness and area of these mirror-like patches
are wp
50 nm and S p
500 500 nm2 , respectively. This
does not occupy much space but is large enough to reduce
the out-of-plane leakage. It might be tempting to put the reflecting patches at hp
60 nm, where the y component of
the normalized power flow representing the out-of-plane
power leakage is at its maximum. One might hope that the
best performance is achieved in this way because the share
of the incident power being vertically carried away from

Fig. 4. Schematic of the proposed structure for reduction of the outof-plane leakage.

Fig. 5. x component of the magnetic field of the fundamental mode

of the nanoplasmonic slot waveguide (a) without patches, (b) with
patches at hp
60 nm, and (c) with patches at hp
220 nm.

the structure reaches its maximum when y
60 nm. This

however is too close to the slot and alters the effective index
of propagation and mode profile of the structure. The effective
index of the fundamental mode in the original structure with
no metallic patches at the free space wavelength of 0

850 nm is N
1.960.00452i. The corresponding field
profile is shown in Fig. 5(a). The effective index of the fundamental mode at the same free space wavelength when the
metallic patches are placed at hp
60 nm becomes N

2.030.00556i and the Ohmic dissipation of the structure is
increased. The field profile of the fundamental mode in the
new structure is shown in Fig. 5(b). This figure shows that
the field profile of the new structure is no longer fully concentrated around the corners of the slot region. Rather, it
becomes horizontally elongated and thus slightly resembles
the field profile of the higher order modes supported by
the original slot waveguide with no metallic patches. Therefore, the incoming fundamental mode excites the higher
order modes when it meets the new structure with metallic
patches at hp
60 nm and cannot be efficiently transmitted
though the bend. It is no wonder that the overall loss of
the structure is increased from 2.6 dB (55%) to about
1.55 dB (70%).
Two conditions are to be met to ensure that the position of
the metallic patches is optimum. First, the out-of-plane power
leakage, i.e., the y component of the normalized power flow in
Fig. 3, should not be lost to the leaky modes excited by the
presence of metallic patches. Therefore, hp should be larger
than the transverse decay constant of the slot mode to ensure
that the fundamental mode profile of the structure with metallic patches resembles that of the original structure. Second,
the out-of-plane power leakage should not be already lost
before getting a chance to be reflected by the patches. Since
the out-of-plane power leakage decreases when it is calculated at higher heights, i.e., at larger y coordinates, the patches
cannot be too far from the outer surface of the bend and hp
cannot be significantly larger than the transverse decay constant of the slot mode. The optimum position of the patches is
hp
220 nm, when the wavelength of light at free space is
0
850 nm. At this particular position and at the free space
wavelength of 0
850 nm, the fundamental mode effective
index and field profile are not any different from the fundamental mode effective index and field profile of the original
structure with no metallic patches. This is clearly demonstrated in Fig. 5(c), where the fundamental mode field profile

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Vol. 31, No. 3 / March 2014 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B

461

Transmission, Reflection & Loss

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

Fig. 7. (a) First type pillar defect. (b) Transmission (solid line),
reflection (dashed), and the overall loss (dotted) of the structure with
w1
w2, and d
40 nm.

0.1
0

0.82

0.84

0.86
0.88
Wavelength, nm

0.9

Fig. 6. Transmission (solid line), reflection (dashed), and overall loss

(dotted) of the structure in Fig. 4 when w
80 nm and h
100 nm.

of the structure with patches at hp
220 nm is plotted at the

free space wavelength of 0
850 nm.
In Fig. 6, the transmission, reflection, and the overall loss of
the proposed structure are obtained and plotted versus near
infrared wavelengths by solid, dashed, and dotted lines,
respectively. In accordance with Fig. 3, about 6.38 dB
(23%) of the incident power in the structure with no metallic
patches is vertically carried away through the horizontal plane
at y
220 nm. Therefore, the transmission efficiency of the
bent structure with the metallic patches can at best rise from
about 4.95 dB (32%) and reach about 2.596 dB (55%). The
transmission efficiency of the structure with metallic patches
at hp
220 nm is increased from about 4.95 dB (32%) to
about 3.37 dB (46%). It can be argued that the remaining
11.55 dB (7%) of the power, gained by reduction of the
out-of-plane power leakage, is regretfully lost to the reflection
as the reflection of the structure with metallic patches is
increased from 8.86 dB (13%) to 6.99 dB (20%). In other
words, even though the overall loss of the structure is substantially reduced, the back reflection has become more
pronounced.

3. REDUCTION OF REFLECTION AND

IN-PLANE LEAKAGE
Although the presence of the reflecting metallic patches
can indeed increase the transmission of the sharply bent nanoplasmonic slot waveguide, there are still two factors contributing to low transmission of the structure. One is the serious
momentum mismatch incurred by the sharp 90 bend in the
nanoplasmonic slot waveguide. The other is the difference
between the electrical length to be traveled by the plasmons
supported by the inner and outer edges of the bend. This difference makes the profile of the incoming wave asymmetrical
and thus excites the higher order modes. The imposed phase
difference between the waves that travel along the outer and
inner edges of the bend can be easily written as

w L
2

L
;
w

propagation constant of the edge plasmon mode, and w is

its corresponding wavelength.
One easy-to-implement approach for reduction of the
abovementioned phase difference is to increase the geometrical length of the inner edge. Figure 7(a) schematically shows
the cross section of the proposed structure in the x-z plane.
Since the extra geometrical length traveled by the outer edge
plasmon modes is L
2w, the unwanted phase difference is
eliminated if w1
w2. Furthermore, the undesirable effects
of momentum mismatch are to some extent ameliorated
thanks to the further confinement of the electromagnetic energy within the shrunken slot whose width has become w2.
Regretfully, the Ohmic dissipation of the structure increases
when the slot width shrinks to w2; yet the deteriorating
effects of the increased Ohmic dissipation of the proposed
structure are of no consequence when d is not too long. A
good choice in our proposed nanoplasmonic slot waveguide
is d
w2
40 nm. The transmission, reflection, and the
overall loss of the proposed structure are calculated at different near infrared wavelengths and are plotted in Fig. 7(b) by
solid, dashed, and dotted lines, respectively. This figure
clearly demonstrates that the bending loss in the proposed
structure is significantly reduced. Nevertheless, the back
reflection of the incoming wave is slightly increased. This
could be attributed to the additional reflection caused by
the protuberance of the square bulge used for elimination
of the unwanted (marked by arrow i).
To further increase the transmission of the proposed
structure, the back reflection should be reduced. Since the
proposed protuberance in Fig. 7(a) forms a new bend with
a shrunken slot width within the original bend, one can resort
to the idea of using a pillar at the corner of the bend to
decrease the unwanted back reflection via destructive
interference [16]. Figure 8(a) schematically shows the cross

(2)

where L is the difference between the geometrical lengths

of the inner and outer edges of the bend, w indicates the

Fig. 8. (a) Second type pillar defect. (b) Transmission (solid line),
reflection (dashed), and overall loss (dotted) of sharp bend with
w1
w2, d
40 nm, and w2
w4.

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Eshaghian et al.

section of such a structure in the x-z plane. The presence of

the metallic pillar significantly reduces the back reflection observed within the newly formed bend with the shrunken slot
width if w2
w1 2. The transmission, reflection, and the
overall loss of the proposed structure are calculated at different near infrared wavelengths and are plotted in Fig. 8(b) by
solid, dashed, and dotted lines, respectively. Although the
destructive interference caused by the pillar significantly
reduces the back reflection within the newly formed bend,
the overall reflection observed at the excitation port of the
original slot waveguide is still about 10% (10 dB).
The structure in Fig. 8(a) is still in want of modification and
the overall transmission can be further increased. Fortunately,
the idea of using destructive interference for reduction of
back reflection is still workable. The incoming wave in the
structure shown in Fig. 8(a) is reflected by the protuberance
of the square bulge (marked by arrow i), the facade of the
pillar (marked by arrow ii), and the outermost wall of the slot
waveguide in the outer arm of the bend (marked by arrow iii).
While the latter two backward waves (marked by arrows ii
and iii) destructively interfere with each other and diminish
the back reflection measured within the newly formed bend,
the former (marked by arrow i) is left uncompensated and
contributes to the overall reflection measured within the original bend. The overall reflection is expected to be further
reduced in the structure shown in Fig. 9(a), where the superposition of the backward waves marked by arrows ii and iii
destructively interferes with the backward waves marked by
arrow i. The intuitive explanation of having the desired
destructive interference in Fig. 9(a) is that the round-trip
phase of the principal mode in the newly formed bend is very
close to . In other words,
2l0 k0 N  Rii  Riii Ri ;

(3)

where k0
2850 radnm is the free space wavenumber,

N
2.296 is the effective index of propagation, l0
80 nm,
and Ri , Rii , and Riii are the phase of backward waves
denoted by arrows i, ii, iii, respectively.
To demonstrate that the overall reflection has become negligible, the transmission, reflection, and the overall loss of the
proposed structure shown in Fig. 9(a) are calculated at different near infrared wavelengths and are plotted in Fig. 9(b) by
solid, dashed, and dotted lines, respectively. This figure shows
that the overall reflection is almost negligible.
Finally, the y component of the magnetic field when the
fundamental mode of the nanoplasmonic slot waveguide at
the free space wavelength of 0
850 nm is passing through

Fig. 10. y component of the magnetic field when the fundamental

mode is passing through the structure with metallic patches and
(a) no pillar defect, (b) first type pillar defect, (c) second type pillar
defect, and (d) third type pillar defect.

the sharp bends with and without the three different types
of here-proposed defects is plotted in Fig. 10. Comparison
of Figs. 10(b) and 10(a) shows that the first type defect
can ameliorate the asymmetry of the transmitted profile
at the expense of increased reflection. Comparison of
Figs. 10(b) and 10(c) shows that the second type defect
can partly decrease the increased level of reflection without
imposing asymmetry on the transmitted profile. Comparison
of Figs. 10(c) and 10(d) shows that the destructive interference can further reduce the unwanted reflection and increase
the desired transmission. The destructive interference held by
Eq. (3) has successfully suppressed the standing wave pattern
at the right-hand side of the input arm of the bend.
It is worth noting that the presence of patches is beneficial
for reduction of the out-of-plane leakage only. Regretfully, this
reduction is bought at the expense of increased level of back
reflection. Therefore, if one is more interested in reducing the
back reflection rather than increasing the transmission then
one can remove the metallic patches. Numerical calculation
shows that while back reflection with patches is about 4%
at the free space wavelength of 850 nm, the back reflection
in the structure without patches is as low as 1%. The lowest
achievable back reflection depends on the wavelength and
can be even smaller than 1% for longer wavelengths. Although
it is possible to reach very low level of back reflection via simple pillar defects already reported in [16], the third type pillar
defect reported here decreases the unwanted effects of the
inevitable bending momentum mismatch, compensates the
imposed phase difference between the waves that travel along
the outer and inner edges of the bend, and thereby provides
higher level of overall transmission.

4. CONCLUSION
Fig. 9. (a) Third type pillar defect. (b) Transmission (solid line),
reflection (dashed), and the overall loss (dotted) of sharp bend with
w1
w2, d
40 nm, w2
w4, and l0
80 nm.

The standard nanoplasmonic slot waveguide suffers from lack

of bending flexibility and thus is not a suitable element for
large scale integration. Unfortunately, neither the reduction

Eshaghian et al.

of slot width nor the removal of the sharp outer corner of the
bend can considerably enhance the bending performance of
the standard nanoplasmonic slot waveguide. The overall loss
of a sharp 90 bend in nanoplasmonic slot waveguides is substantial (over 50%) and the back reflection is non-negligible
(over 10%). Since a certain fraction of the incoming power
is vertically carried away from the bend, two metallic patches
were employed in this paper to suppress out-of-plane power
leakage from the bend. The in-plane power leakage was then
reduced by balancing the electrical length of the plasmon
modes propagating along the inner and outer edges of the slot
waveguide. This step was carried out via a square bulge protruding from the inner corner of the bend. It was shown that
the overall loss significantly drops down when the asymmetry
between the inner and outer corners of the bend is eliminated.
Finally, the shape of the outer corner of the bend was modified to reduce the back reflection via destructive interference
between the forward and backward waves travelling within
the slot region. It was shown that the fraction of power transmitted through the sharp 90 bend in the modified nanoplasmonic slot waveguide can exceed 80% at near infrared
wavelength, where the effect of loss is more pronounced.
The proposed approach can be followed to enhance the bending performance of similar structures, and it is not restricted
to the narrow spectral range of 810910 nm. At the free space
wavelength of 1300 nm for instance, neither the size nor the
location of the metallic patches needs any change. The only
parameter that should be recalculated in our design methodology is d. Thanks to the algebraic closed form expression
given in Eq. (3) and since l0
d  w2, the optimum value
of d can be straightforwardly found at any free space wavelength. It should be however pointed out that the height of the
slot waveguide can be increased without incurring multimode
operation if the free space wavelength is large enough. Therefore, there are easier methods to increase the transmission
efficiency at larger free space wavelengths. The major benefit
of our proposed methodology is more pronounced when we
consider shorter wavelengths.

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